Implementation of quality management in the public sector versus the private sector: a cultural analysis

This thesis reviews the Total Quality Management (TQM) literature and concludes that core to the introduction of TQM in any organisation is a need to be acutely sensitive to the cultural aspects of the organisation. This thesis proceeds to review the Organisational Culture literature and concludes that culture can be measured and changed. It also identifies four factors of Organisational Culture which facilitate measurement of the concept. As the research programme is situated in the public sector the thesis considers the very different and indeed opposing views regarding the development of the public sector and concludes, that irrespective of the strategy used, that the human factor is a key area in public sector reform. This people focus requires culture change and time to implement. The methodology employed to measure and compare organisational culture in both private and public sector organizations at two different times in the quality journey was primarily positivist and quantitative. Cartwright’s 9-dimension culture questionnaire was employed to capture the human facets of organisational culture. The results indicate a significant difference in culture between the private and public sectors at both times but that the variation in culture had reduced during the time interval between the two surveys. The implications of this study will assist in the understanding of organisational culture particularly in the public sector. Due to the shortage of research in this sector the results will assist in the development of public sector reform or modernisation programmes

The Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland Channel Capacity for a Class of Qudit Unital Channels

The Holevo-Schumacher-Westmoreland (HSW) classical (entanglement-unassisted) channel capacity for a class of qudit unital channels is shown to be C = log2(d) - Smin, where d is the dimension of the qudit, and Smin is the minimum possible von Neumann entropy at the channel output. The HSW channel capacity for tensor products of this class of unital qudit channels is shown to obey the same formula.Comment: 21 Pages. No Figure

An optimal output feedback solution to the strip shape multivariable control problem

The design of shape control systems for producing flat metal strip products is discussed. Static and dynamic models for a Sendzimir mill are described briefly. Optimal dynamic output feedback solutions are presented for the shape control system design. The optimal control solutions provide guidance on the best structure to be used for shape control. It is shown that by judicious choice of the performance criterion weighting matrices particularly simple controllers may be derived; dimension reduction by parameterisation is also shown to result in a simplification to the controller structure. The effect of nonlinearities in the actuators is discussed, a linear approximation being used for design purposes. A variety of simulation results are presented showing the transient response and the shape control performance of the multivariable system. The effect of mismatch is also demonstrated, that is, using the controller for a mill schedule other than the one for which it was designed

An optimal output feedback solution to the strip shape multivariable control problem

The design of shape control systems for producing flat metal strip products is discussed. Static and dynamic models for a Sendzimir mill are described briefly. Optimal dynamic output feedback solutions are presented for the shape control system design. The optimal control solutions provide guidance on the best structure to be used for shape control. It is shown that by judicious choice of the performance criterion weighting matrices particularly simple controllers may be derived; dimension reduction by parameterisation is also shown to result in a simplification to the controller structure. The effect of nonlinearities in the actuators is discussed, a linear approximation being used for design purposes. A variety of simulation results are presented showing the transient response and the shape control performance of the multivariable system. The effect of mismatch is also demonstrated, that is, using the controller for a mill schedule other than the one for which it was designed

Applying the flow-capturing location-allocation model to an authentic network: Edmonton, Canada

Traditional location-allocation models aim to locate network facilities to optimally serve demand expressed as weights at nodes. For some types of facilities demand is not expressed at nodes, but as passing network traffic. The flow-capturing location-allocation model responds to this type of demand and seeks to maximize one-time exposure of such traffic to facilities. This new model has previously been investigated only with small and contrived problems. In this paper, we apply the flow-capturing location-allocation model to morning-peak traffic in Edmonton, Canada. We explore the effectiveness of exact, vertex substitution, and greedy solution procedures; the first two are computationally demanding, the greedy is very efficient and extremely robust. We hypothesize that the greedy algorithm's robustness is enhanced by the structured flow present in an authentic urban road network. The flow-capturing model was derived to overcome flow cannibalization, wasteful redundant flow-capturing; we demonstrate that this is an important consideration in an authentic network. We conclude that real-world testing is an important aspect of location model development

Disks and Jets : Gravity, Rotation and Magnetic Fields

Magnetic fields are fundamental to the dynamics of both accretion disks and the jets that they often drive. We review the basic physics of these phenomena, the past and current efforts to model them numerically with an emphasis on the jet-disk connection, and the observational constraints on the role of magnetic fields in the jets of active galaxies on all scalesPeer reviewe

Profiteering from the Dot-com Bubble, Sub-Prime Crisis and Asian Financial Crisis

This paper explores the characteristics associated with the formation of bubbles that occurred in the Hong Kong stock market in 1997 and 2007, as well as the 2000 dot-com bubble of Nasdaq. It examines the profitability of Technical Analysis (TA) strategies generating buy and sell signals with knowing and without trading rules. The empirical results show that by applying long and short strategies during the bubble formation and short strategies after the bubble burst, it not only produces returns that are significantly greater than buy and hold strategies, but also produces greater wealth compared with TA strategies without trading rules. We conclude these bubble detection signals help investors generate greater wealth from applying appropriate long and short Moving Average (MA) strategies

An ontic–ontological theory for ethics of designing social robots : a case of Black African women and humanoids

Given the affective psychological and cognitive dynamics prevalent during human–robot-interlocution, the vulnerability to cultural-political influences of the design aesthetics of a social humanoid robot has far-reaching ramifications. Building upon this hypothesis, I explicate the relationship between the structures of the constitution social ontology and computational semiotics, and ventures a theoretical framework which I proposes as a thesis that impels a moral responsibility on engineers of social humanoids. In distilling this thesis, the implications of the intersection between the socio-aesthetics of racialised and genderised humanoids and the phenomenology of human–robot-interaction are illuminated by the figuration of the experience of a typical black rural African woman as the user, that is, an interlocutor with an industry-standard socially-situated humanlike robot. The representation of the gravity of the psycho-existential and socio-political ramifications of such woman’s life with humanoids is abstracted and posited as grounds that illustrate the imperative for roboticists to take socio-ethical considerations seriously in their designs of humanoids.https://www.springer.com/journal/10676hj2021Philosoph